At least from what i could gather the difference is thought at at worst you are just stuck with using the GPU on amd without the switching working properly (that is the case with my new machine), while its unclear whether you are able to use the GPU at all with optimus (or with significant performance penalty). But maybe i'm misinformed about this. It would be more bearable if there was more concrete info about what works and what not. I for example would have been perfectly fine buying Nvidia if i knew that i can simply use the GPU without restriction and without switching...

Nvidia should have put a big disclaimer on the linux driver download page indicating that mobile cards are unsupported. Instead they pretend they are supported and have some fine print on the "additional info" tab that says "Some designs incorporating supported GPUs may not be compatible with the NVIDIA Linux driver: in particular, notebook and all-in-one desktop designs with switchable (hybrid) or Optimus graphics will not work if means to disable the integrated graphics in hardware are not available."

Good luck figuring out if your laptop has Optimus graphics. None of the PC makers list it in the hardware specs.

Nvidia should have put a big disclaimer on the linux driver download page indicating that mobile cards are unsupported. Instead they pretend they are supported and have some fine print on the "additional info" tab that says "Some designs incorporating supported GPUs may not be compatible with the NVIDIA Linux driver: in particular, notebook and all-in-one desktop designs with switchable (hybrid) or Optimus graphics will not work if means to disable the integrated graphics in hardware are not available."

Good luck figuring out if your laptop has Optimus graphics. None of the PC makers list it in the hardware specs.

Not all (by far!) NVIDIA mobile GPU's are Optimus. But think about it: none of those laptops are advertised to work with Linux, they have freaking Windows pre-installed for crying out loud. As a side note, did you even read the article to which mhaigen provided a link?!

Originally Posted by http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTE3MzY

Aaron Plattner, one of the lead NVIDIA Linux engineers, publicly wrote "So I've been experimenting with support for Dave Airlie's new RandR 1.4 provider object interface, so that Optimus-based laptops can use our driver to drive the discrete GPU and display on the integrated GPU. The good news is that I've got a proof of concept working."

As a side note, did you even read the article to which mhaigen provided a link?!

Yeah, I read it. It's horribly inaccurate as I mentioned in my other responses in this thread. Go read Aaron's original emails. Nvidia has NOT said that Optimus will be officially supported. Intel was OFFICIALLY developing Larrabee and look what happened there. In other words, don't hold your breath for linux support. It could be a year or more, if ever.

Go read Aaron's original emails. Nvidia has NOT said that Optimus will be officially supported.

No he doesn't. And why should he? He said that they were experimenting with implementing it, and that he had a proof-of-concept working.

People at companies generally don't get to pursue random side-projects. So this experimentation was obviously at the behest of NVIDIA, who likely wanted a feasibility study into how long it would take, what manpower and support would be needed, etc.

If support for Optimus is going to happen on Linux, then that's the first step: figuring out what it would cost NVIDIA to provide it.

It could be a year or more, if ever.

Or it could be before Christmas. Or Valve could go to them and crack the whip, as they seem to be shifting towards Linux as a real OS target.

So this experimentation was obviously at the behest of NVIDIA, who likely wanted a feasibility study into how long it would take, what manpower and support would be needed, etc.

In addition, there is a controversy around GPL lincensed kernel code which would have be lincensed differently in order for NVIDIA to actually bring the changes. Several kernel developers, however, have not accepted a corresponding pull request by an Intel engineer. More on that matter here.

In addition, there is a controversy around GPL lincensed kernel code which would have be lincensed differently in order for NVIDIA to actually bring the changes. Several kernel developers, however, have not accepted a corresponding pull request by an Intel engineer. More on that matter here.